A new policy in the “Big, Beautiful Bill” championed by President Donald Trump would give the United States a big leg up in thwarting China’s goal of controlling the world’s airwaves, an expert in advanced weapons technologies told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) includes a provision that designates 600 megahertz of spectrum — the range of radio frequencies that carry wireless signals used in everything from smartphones to military systems — available for commercial development, allowing American companies to invest further in technologies like 5G that spectrum powers. National security officials have warned that the U.S. needs to free up more spectrum for commercial development to match the rise of China’s rapidly developing tech and AI industry, much of which relies on spectrum.
“China is pursuing an aggressive approach on every front. On trade, on stealing intellectual property, espionage and dominating the global economy,” Robert F. Dees, a retired Major General in the U.S. Army and expert on high technology weapons, told the DCNF. “Spectrum development is a major part of all of that.”
‘We Lost The Leadership’
While the U.S. controls a significant portion of the world’s spectrum, China has already allocated four times more licensed mid-band spectrum — the specific frequency range that powers 5G technology — for commercial use than the U.S. Freeing up more spectrum is a crucial part of stopping China’s quest to become the world’s dominant superpower, Dees told the DCNF.
“The U.S. used to be number one in spectrum development and China was number 17. Now China is number 1 and we are close to number 17,” Dees said. “We lost the leadership.”
China can use 5G networks to capture Americans’ sensitive data, making it easier to conduct global surveillance operations, former senior military and intelligence officials warned in an April 2019 statement.
“Chinese-designed 5G networks will provide near-persistent data transfer back to China that the Chinese government could capture at will,” the former officials warned. “This is not our opinion or even that of our intelligence community, but the directive of China’s 2017 Intelligence Law, which legally requires that ‘any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with’ the security services of China’s One-Party State.”
China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier by subscribers, is set to deploy 340,000 new 5G base stations in 2025, which will bring its total to nearly 2.8 million, according to an industry report from GSMA Intelligence, which provides analytics on the mobile data space.
That rapid growth gives China the ability to export popular platforms like TikTok and shield itself domestically from western competitors, according to a recent report in War On The Rocks, a national security outlet. In addition to giving Chinese companies an edge over their western counterparts, expanded spectrum capabilities also open the door for military applications that counter U.S. stealth weapons like the F-35.
The U.S. has plenty of spectrum available, it just is not being used efficiently, Dees told the DCNF. The Department of Defense could auction off billions of dollars of spectrum and still have enough to cover all of the military’s current and future needs.
“We don’t have to rob Peter to pay Paul. We have more than enough spectrum for all our military needs, including Golden Dome,” Dees said. “This is extra spectrum that we should be making available to American companies who want to compete with China.”
“If the Chinese government and its autocratic allies dominate 5G and 6G with superior spectrum infrastructure, there is no defense system or mitigation measure that can protect the Americans or U.S. interests,” Carr said.
The wish for spectrum expansions extends all the way to the White House, with Trump urging Congress on May 20 to identify 600 megahertz of wireless spectrum and make it available for commercial use through the OBBB. The bill narrowly passed the House on May 22, receiving zero votes from Democrats.
“We must maintain our status as the Worldwide Leader in WiFi, 5G, and 6G, connecting every American to the World’s BEST Networks, while also keeping everyone safe. We can do both at the same time,” the president wrote. “Bottom line, I am going to free up plenty of SPECTRUM for auction, so Congress must put 600 MHz in ‘THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL.’”
Trump “spearheaded one of the most successful spectrum auctions in U.S. history” during his first term, selling more than $80 billion of spectrum for commercial use, Dees said. But that all stopped during the Biden administration, for reasons that aren’t totally clear.
Expanding spectrum availability for American companies has been hotly debated in Washington. The policy drew opposition during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in late March 2023 from former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who both argued that it would be “devastating” for national security to auction off spectrum without studying the matter further.
The remarks made during the late March hearing were an about face for Austin.
Only weeks before, Austin and former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo endorsed a plan to auction more commercial spectrum, writing that doing so “protects critical national security missions, enables cutting-edge innovation, and ensures that the international community sees the United States as a leader on spectrum issues,” Politico reported.
Their endorsement triggered internal pushback from Milley, who was cited in a Pentagon memo arguing against the policy, according to Politico. Sen. Mike Rounds, who currently serves as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, told Politico at the time that he’d never seen such a policy rift between the Pentagon and joint chiefs before.
“The joint chiefs nonconcurred with [Austin’s] recommendation — I’ve never heard of that ever happening before,” Rounds told the outlet “I have spoken not just to General Milley but to a number of other uniformed individuals who have real concerns with this even as late as yesterday.”
Milley’s opposition could be explained by several factors, Dees told the DCNF.
“It may have just been a controlling bureaucratic approach without realizing the broader implications,” he said. “But there were plenty of people pulling his sleeves, probably some people within the Pentagon.”
Milley did not respond to a request for comment.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Flag of China, Ermell / Wikimedia Commons)
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